Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. 1919. The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250–1900.
Roden Berkeley Wriothesley Noel. 18341894803. The Water-Nymph and the Boy
I FLUNG me round him, | |
I drew him under; | |
I clung, I drown’d him, | |
My own white wonder!… | |
Father and mother, | 5 |
Weeping and wild, | |
Came to the forest, | |
Calling the child, | |
Came from the palace, | |
Down to the pool, | 10 |
Calling my darling, | |
My beautiful! | |
Under the water, | |
Cold and so pale! | |
Could it be love made | 15 |
Beauty to fail? | |
Ah me for mortals! | |
In a few moons, | |
If I had left him, | |
After some Junes | 20 |
He would have faded, | |
Faded away, | |
He, the young monarch, whom | |
All would obey, | |
Fairer than day; | 25 |
Alien to springtime, | |
Joyless and gray, | |
He would have faded, | |
Faded away, | |
Moving a mockery, | 30 |
Scorn’d of the day! | |
Now I have taken him | |
All in his prime, | |
Saved from slow poisoning | |
Pitiless Time, | 35 |
Fill’d with his happiness, | |
One with the prime, | |
Saved from the cruel | |
Dishonour of Time. | |
Laid him, my beautiful, | 40 |
Laid him to rest, | |
Loving, adorable, | |
Softly to rest, | |
Here in my crystalline, | |
Here in my breast! | 45 |